President Bush went to Iraq to free the Iraqi’s, to destroy Saddam’s WMDs, to protect America’s freedom and to make peace in the Middle East. Bush was heavily influenced by his neoconservative aids and did everything he could do to ensure the plan went through; deceiving almost everyone. The only consistent aspect of Bush’s speeches over the years has been the useless term “War on Terror”. This phrase has overstayed its welcome and is constantly used by Bush and many other conservatives to describe almost any act of war initiated by the US or its allies. It has no meaning anymore. The day after September 11th, it had a meaning for most Americans who couldn’t understand why they were attacked. The term “War on Terror” was meant to describe the fight against the people who attacked the United States.

But when Bush extended his “War on Terror” to attacking Iraq, describing Saddam as an “imminent threat”, it completely lost its meaning. The war in Iraq has created chaos and has destabilized the entire Middle East. The war has in fact had the exact opposite effect by creating more terror. Iran’s power is on the rise, and U.S. power is diminishing.

What’s interesting about Saddam Hussein’s execution is that he was killed for killing people who tried to kill him (Now that’s a tongue twister). The interesting part is that the United States supported Saddam in the war against Iran in the 80’s. Hell, Donald Rumsfeld even shook hands with Saddam openly discussing their common interest against Iran and Syria in December 1983, one year after Saddam’s executions against his apparent would-be assassins in which he was hanged for. The U.S. gave Saddam too much power and Saddam took advantage. The US turned a blind eye to Saddam when he used his chemical weapons in 1988 because he was an asset. Hell, the US even tried to put the blame on Iran for the Halabja poison attack. The atrocities Saddam committed were largely ignored by the United States until it was needed to justify an attack on Iraq, some 15 years later.

The neoconservatives and their corporate ties had high dreams of a democratic Iraq. A U.S. backed government in Iraq would give the U.S. more power in the Middle East; especially against their longtime foe Iran. The heavy use of weapons would pump money into the arms producing industry, and contracts to rebuild Iraq would be available for the U.S. corporations. All these neoconservative dreams were flushed down the toilet the day the U.S. took control of Iraq. Iraq needs a real leader of the people, someone who can gain support from all sides. This is not an easy task to accomplish within the arbitrary British-created borders of Iraq.

In Bush’s most recent State of the Union address, Bush’s strategy has changed. He no longer talks about a War on Terror in the sense of eliminating terrorists. He now talks about the War on Terror as a way of not letting Iraq turn into a “terrorist safe-haven” like Afghanistan turned into after the Soviets were driven out. In other words, the strategy of the war now is to clean up the mess that he created. Instead of talking about “absolute victory”, the goal now is to get Iraq to be as stable as it was before the US entered; and that will not be an easy thing to do.

I’ve said this many times before, but this kind of war creates terror, it doesn’t eliminate it.